The National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) agrees to provide $20,000 to the Office of the Director, Office or Rare Diseases (OD/ORD to support the July 16, 2009 [unreadable]Advancing Rare Diseases Research through Networks and Collaboration[unreadable] conference at the NIH Natcher Conference Center. The goals of this conference are to present unique advances in the Rare Disease Clinical Research Network, highlight successful collaborations to improve rare diseases reach, underscore the involvement and essential role of patients advocacy groups to facilitate research and accrual of patients, and discuss procedures to apply standards across research consortia and research networks.